About the Saving Faces Art Project

Our art exhibition displays paintings by BP National Portrait award winner Mark Gilbert, produced during a three year period as artist-in-residence in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at St. Bartholomew’s and the Royal London Hospital. The paintings portray the faces of patients before, after and in some cases actually during their surgery for injury, deformity or cancer.

Initiated and sponsored by surgeon Professor Iain Hutchison, the art project was conceived as a way of conveying to the public the possibilities of today’s facial surgery whilst at the same time communicating the strength of spirit which can enable people with facial disfigurements and trauma to lead full and happy lives. Portraits of 30 of the patients are displayed in the exhibition which was launched in spring 2002 at the National Portrait Gallery and has since toured extensively in the UK, Europe and the USA.

One series of paintings is of Henry de Lotbiniere who lost an eye and underwent 15 operations over 13 years as surgeons chased the spread of cancer of the salivary gland. Another picture shows Roland Scott staring out at us through his radiotherapy mask while another depicts Chris Pavlou whose face was smashed to pulp in a random act of violence. And there is Sue Morgan Elphick whose life was transformed after being treated for a facial disproportion. Some of the mid-operation pictures are not for the squeamish, but seen as part of a sequence these vivid canvasses take the viewer into an intense and powerful narrative. The paintings chart not only the patients’ physical transformations through surgery but also capture their emotional responses in a way photography can rarely achieve. Wherever the exhibition has been shown, the response of the public has been overwhelmingly positive: challenged to confront their preconceptions about disfigurement, most people find the paintings profoundly moving and uplifting.

For the patients involved, the experience of being painted proved a cathartic one and many developed a rapport with Mark, often confiding in him details of their lives which they shared with no one else. Whilst some of the patients might be reluctant to be photographed, they are all proud to have their portraits exhibited because the paintings engage with the individuality of the person behind the procedure being depicted.

Booking Artwork for Loan Exhibition

We are always delighted to receive requests for our exhibition to go on tour. If you would like your organisation to host our artwork exhibition or to enquire about availability of works, please write to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Please note, while Saving Faces provides insurance for the full value of the artwork on transit, we ask the Exhibitors to arrange and cover transportation costs for the collection and return of the artwork loaned. The Exhibitors will also be responsible for organising insurance for the Loaned artwork upon receiving the paintings at the Exhibitor's premises and for the full duration of their stay there.

The Saving Faces Art Project is the work of artist Mark Gilbert, artist-in-residence to the Maxillofacial surgery department. The paintings portray the faces of patients before, after and in some cases during their surgery. You can view the selection of artwork that are available for loan along with each individual patients' story below.

Barry's story

Barry was 11 when he posed for the Saving Faces Art Project and lived with his parents Andrew and Helen in Kent. He was a keen Southampton supporter and Playstation fanatic.

At birth he was diagnosed as having a retinoblastoma affecting his left eye, which was initially treated with radiotherapy. One year later he developed a small tumour at this site and this received further treatment.

Barry's life remained normal until the age of 11 when he developed an osteosarcoma of the ethmoid sinuses at the top of his nose and the inner aspect of his left eye (i.e. a malignant bone tumour). This caused marked swelling on the left-hand side of his nose and bulging out of his left eye. He underwent six months of chemotherapy and in December 1999, just before Christmas, he was operated on and the malignant tumour was removed by splitting the base of his skull from above and separating his nose from his face to pull the tumour out completely. He was left with a scar on the left-hand side of his nose and over the top of his scalp where the scalp had been peeled off to remove the frontal bone and access the tumour from within the skull cavity.

Thanks to his fortitude, Barry was able to leave hospital on Christmas Eve 1999, six days after the operation, and enjoy Christmas at home. Despite his long periods off school, Barry has been supported throughout by his many friends who never forgot him even though he could not play or join in most day-to-day activities. He has overcome all the hurdles that life has thrown at him with bravery and spirit.

Chris' story

Chris is a Buddhist. In 1992, when he was 28 years old, he was attacked with baseball bats by a group of youths after an argument in a Chinese restaurant.

He sustained fractures of his left cheekbone, eye socket, and skull bones (greater wing of sphenoid and temporal bones). He was conscious when admitted to hospital, but he rapidly lost the sight in his left eye as the optic nerve was compressed by broken bits of bone.

He underwent emergency surgery through a scalping incision, where the scalp is peeled down from above to expose the facial and skull bones (bicoronal flap). Bone was removed from around the optic nerve and the bones of the eye socket, skull and cheekbone were correctly repositioned and fixed with titanium metal plates. The scalp was replaced at the end of the operation and sutured in place.

He lives with his wife Tracy and works as an actor. He also sells holidays for Hilton hotels and sings in his rock band Retrosexual.

Dudley's story

Dudley was a 46-year-old bank manager when he suffered a shotgun injury to his face, which fragmented his lower jaw, destroyed his nose, his upper jaw, his palate, the base of the skull, part of the brain and made him blind. This happened in 1998.

He immediately underwent emergency surgery to save his life, including the insertion of a breathing tube (tracheostomy), the closure of his facial wounds and the sealing of his skull base from the nasal cavity and mouth so that no brain fluid leaked down into this area and no communication remained between the brain and the nose and mouth. He then underwent a second operation in which all the remaining fragments of his lower jaw were replaced and fixed with metal titanium plates.

In 2000, the holes in his face at the top of his nose, the nasal bones themselves and the upper jaw and palate were reconstructed using bone from the shoulder blade and skin from his back. This flap of bone skin and fat was kept alive by joining the artery and vein supplying it to branches of the carotid artery and jugular vein in the patient's neck.

Prior to this injury, Dudley enjoyed all sports especially cricket and ski-ing. He remains in excellent spirits despite his blindness.

Since his last operation he is now able to eat, drink and speak more easily because he no longer has a hole in his palate connecting his mouth with his face and he is enjoying his food for the first time since the injury.

He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, and they now run a property business.